Tutorial Recording Notes:

Disclaimer: these are the actual notes I used to record this video and are written in a language you may or may not understand. Hopefully, you find them useful or cool.

Create a new layer

Use the Healing Brush set to the Lighten blend mode and Sample Current and Below and paint away eye veins

Use the white handle for the Blend If slider for This Layer and split it and drag about to the middle to blend the cover up a little

Add 1.5px of noise to really blend the patch

Add Vibrance layer at -100 vibrance and fill the mask with black. Paint with 50% opacity white brush over the whites of the eyes to neutralize the color

Use the Healing brush tool to get rid of mineral spots on the iris using the Lighten or Darken blend modes

Create 2x Curves layers. Set one to Color Dodge and one to Color Burn

Add a black filled mask to each layer

Work with the burn layer first

Drag selection over the iris and then drag a second selection by holding down Shift + Alt/Opt to trim the top of the ellipse away and save just a perfect selection of the iris

Use a large 40px or so brush set to 100% opacity and painting white and place the center of the brush just outside of the selection and paint one swathe around the selection to feather in darkness for the edge of the iris

Deselect and Gaussian blur this about 5px

Reduce the brush opacity to 10% and paint the edges of the whites of the eyes a little

Add some darkness to the lashes and a little around the edges of the eye as well

With a brush about the size of the iris, click once or twice in the middle of the pupil to feather in some darkness around the pupil as well

Reduce the opacity of this adjustment layer until it looks right

Select the dodge Curves layer and paint in that mask using a white 1px brush set to 100% opacity

Paint strokes that follow the “ridges” of the iris all the way around the bottom part of the iris

Add extra emphasis to the side of the iris that is directly across from the catchlight

Add a touch of light across the top edge of the bottom eyelid

Gaussian blur this mask 1px

Paint over the existing catchlight to give it some sting

Create a new blank layer and set it to Overlay and grab a white brush set to 100% opacity

Use that same white 1px brush at 100% opacity to paint additional “kicks” into the eye and blur this all 1px as well

Reduce the opacity of the Curves adjustment layer and this second highlight layer a bit

NOTE: When the highlights are overdone or too overpowering, the eyes tend to transform into a not-very-good looking aspect of your subject’s face. When in doubt, reduce opacity an additional 20%

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Nathaniel Dodson: I am a young web designer and commercial photographer specializing in music, business, and athlete portraiture. I am a young and energetic individual who has been working in the design and creative field since I first started dabbling with Photoshop in year 2000.